But the site has sustained damage over the centuries, with looters and unauthorized excavations exacting a heavy toll-a fact that makes the coffins’ pristine state of preservation particularly impressive, as Amanda Kooser wrote for CNET in September. Saqqara is home to a number of extravagant tombs, including one of the region’s first pyramids, the Step Pyramid of Djoser.

I saw one being opened for the first time in 2600 years! Truly amazing! /5oLfAM7zAV- Greg Lewis October 3, 2020

Honoured to be invited by the Minister of Tourism and Antiquities HE Khaled El Anany to Saqqara for the announcement that a new tomb of mummies has been discovered. “I consider it the beginning of the big discovery.” “oday is not the end of the discovery,” he added, as quoted by Agence France-Presse’s (AFP) Mohamed Abouelenen and Menna Zaki. More may follow, said tourism and antiquities minister Khaled al-Anani at the unveiling. The latest batch of finds-revealed at the October 3 press conference-adds 32 sarcophagi to the count, raising the total number of coffins found to 59. The work is inscribed with its owner’s name: Priest Badi-Amun.Īuthorities announced the discovery of an initial trove of 13 wooden coffins in early September. Researchers think the wooden containers hold the remains of priests, government officials and similarly prominent members of ancient Egyptian society.Īs Samy Magdy reports for the Associated Press, excavations at Saqqara have also yielded 28 statues of the god Ptah-Soker and a bronze, one-foot-tall sculpture of the god Nefertum. Found stacked on top of each other in three burial shafts of differing depths (between 32 and 39 feet each), the coffins date to Egypt’s 26th Dynasty, which spanned 664 to 525 B.C. Per a statement, the newly unveiled coffin is one of 59 sealed sarcophagi unearthed at the Saqqara necropolis-a sprawling ancient cemetery located south of Cairo-in recent months. Lifting the lid, the researchers revealed a mummy wrapped in ornate burial linen more than two millennia after the individual’s interment, the cloth’s inscriptions and colorful designs remained intact. On Saturday, October 3, archaeologists from Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities opened a sealed, roughly 2,600-year-old sarcophagus as a crowd of onlookers watched in anticipation.

Mummy gold sarcophagus AND Griggs